HOW TO BUILD A SUCCESSFULMENTORING PROGRAM

Implementing a mentorship program in the workplace can be a powerful way to offer leadership

guidance and the resources your employees need while simultaneously enabling your organization

to meet defined operational goals. Whether your objective is to “retain employees in sales,” to

“create more inclusive work environments” or to “promote more people from within the company,”

mentoring programs can benefit all parties involved. Moreover, mentoring programs utilize

important resources your company already has—your employees—to create a positive impact.

In a recent white paper, Horace McCormick, who is the program director of Executive Development

at the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School, creates a case for mentoring

and provides a framework for launching a successful mentoring program. This resource guide

provides an in-depth summary of the white paper with clear, actionable steps HR and talent

management professionals can use to launch effective and sustainable mentoring programs.

It is often said that the most important work of a manager is the development of his or her employees. In addition to managing and motivating people, it is equally important to provide the resources and guidance people need to learn, grow and become more effective at their jobs.

A Framework for a Successful Mentoring Program

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Mentoring Programs Are on the Rise

of responding millennial workers want a mentor.

want regular feedback from their boss.

feel it is important to constantly learn at their job.

TWO-THIRDS

80% 89%

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According to a Corporate Executive Board survey, 25 percent of U.S. companies now host

peer-mentoring programs—compared to before the 2007 recession, when only 4 to 5 percent

of companies reported such programs.

Mentoring enhances employee satisfaction, retention and recruitment in an organization. It can

also be used to:

Promote and increase diversity in the workplace

Help new hires acclimate to their new roles quickly and more confidently

Assist companies in identifying and grooming high-potential employees

Perhaps the biggest reason that mentoring is being embraced by more organizations is that

the largest population in the workforce—the millennial generation—craves it.

In fact, by 2020, 46 percent of all U.S. workers will be millennials.

When preparing to launch the program, communication is key.

Types of Mentoring Programs

One-on-One Mentoringis the most common. In this approach, the mentor may act as a sounding board, role model and source of support for the mentee.

E-Mentoringallows a mentee to benefit from a mentor regardless of their physical location. The pair may communicate through social media, e-mail or video chat.

Reverse Mentoring encourages communication between generations and allows a younger mentor to share knowledge with an older mentee. The younger mentee may explain a new, cutting-edge technology, for example.

Group Mentoringallows one mentor to provide advice to multiple mentees.

Peer Mentoring Groupscan offer a supportive forum for individuals to discuss common issues and learn from one another.

An organization may choose to use any combination of these approaches. Regardless of which type is selected, the overall approach must align with defined operational goals and have a clear strategic purpose.

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There are several types of mentoring programs, which include:

Despite the rising popularity of mentoring programs in the workplace, developing and maintaining a successful mentorship program can be challenging. Below are a series of steps to avoid common pitfalls and launch a successful, enduring mentoring program:

Lay the groundwork

Prepare for the launch

Launch the program and train participants

Build relationships and assess progress

Evaluate program effectiveness

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A Framework for a Successful Mentoring Program

Step 1: Lay the Groundwork

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Whether the underlying purpose is onboarding, leadership development, more effective succession planning or technical training, a successful mentoring program should address a specific organizational need or skills gap. Identify what you want your program to target. Once that has been defined, objectives can be set.

HR and talent management professionals should be as specific as possible when articulating program objectives. Use SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, timely) goal formatting and link these SMART goals to the company’s defined business objectives.

Organizations should form a governing committee that is comprised of a range of stakeholders that include HR and talent management professionals as well as senior leaders and representatives from different departments or business locations. This committee can provide initial input about the program in its early development stages, but in the long term, the committee should serve to help identify mentors who meet the necessary criteria. Committee members should serve on a 12-month rotation to prevent stagnation and allow for new viewpoints.

Laying the groundwork is a time-consuming but critical step that can be broken into two basic stages:

Recognize the need and set program objectives.STAGE 1

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The structure of a mentoring program should be dictated by three factors:

An organization’s culture

The metrics that flow from the program’s identified objectives

The people needed to achieve those objectives

As part of this process, it is important to define how long the program should last—usually a maximum of 12 months. Establishing the duration of the mentoring experience helps participants stay focused and goal-driven.

Metrics should also be identified during this stage. For example, if a goal of the mentoring program is to increase the promotion rate of high-potential employees, a metric should be proposed to determine if that goal was achieved. In order to evaluate this metric, a control group of non-participating employees should be compared to employees who participated in the mentoring program.

Once the goals and objectives are identified and the structure and scope are defined, you are ready to plan the program launch.

Determine the program’s structure.STAGE 2

Step 2: Prepare for the Launch

The program should be introduced to employees at all levels.

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Communication is important in order to obtain initial and ongoing buy-in and support—not only

from upper management, but also the company at large. The program’s progress and metrics for

success should be reported at every step, from the needs assessment stage to the conclusion. In

addition to enlisting people’s support, ongoing communication will also help identify interested

mentors and mentees.

The program should be introduced to employees at all levels. Every member of the organization

should understand the mentoring program’s goals and objectives. All employees should know

whom the program targets, which employees are eligible and how someone can sign up to

participate. It is important to be transparent about why a specific section of the workforce

population was selected for mentoring. This communication helps enlist people’s support of the

initiative, even when they are not part of the targeted group.

When preparing to launch the program, communication is key.

From trust and communication to process and feedback, a number of other ingredients should be considered to help facilitate a successful mentoring relationship:

PURPOSE COMMUNICATION TRUST PROCESS PROGRESS FEEDBACK

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Both participants must take the relationship seriously. The relationship should be a high priority and have clear, mutual goals.

Both participants must engage in two-way communication. They should meet regularly (monthly for one to two hours) using whatever method works best—in person, by phone, via e-mail or Skype, etc.

Both participants must agree to protect confidential information and understand that trust is an integral part of the relationship.

Both participants must make an effort to ensure that meetings and other interactions move along at an appropriate speed.

Both participants must understand the defined goals and actively work to reach them.

Both participants must provide constructive and honest feedback, as well as listen to and respond to feedback that is given.

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This stage is also an opportunity to develop a process to match mentors and mentees. It can be a

formal or informal process.

For example:

Include a questionnaire, an interview and a committee recommendation for each mentee.

Have mentors and mentees fill out an information sheet about what they hope to offer to or obtain from a mentoring relationship.

Offer the mentor or mentee several options for a partner and allow them to choose one.

Regardless of which approach you use, build in some level of participant choice in the selection.

It is also important to consider how to deal with situations where a pair just doesn’t click. Be sure

to build in a way for people to dissolve the relationship and find another match without hurt

feelings. One approach might be to set up a “check-in” soon after the relationship begins. If the

two participants don’t seem to mesh, it might be best to find the mentee a new mentor.

Step 3: Launch the Program and Train Participants

Step 4: Build Relationships and Assess Progress

Identify goals and milestones.

Decide how often they will meet and for how long.

Learn how to provide constructive feedback.

Link each goal to broader organizational needs.

In this step, a bulk of the work—building relationships—falls on that of the mentor

and mentee. However, it’s also HR’s responsibility to ensure that these

relationships are on the right track. They should be checking to see that goals and

objectives are being met, milestones are being recorded and progress is being

made. Establish check-ins at the two, four, six and eight-month marks—and then

a final meeting upon completion of the mentorship experience.

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Talent management professionals must provide adequate training and guidance because it’s rare

to find natural mentors in any organization. The first step in launching a mentoring program is to

train all participants. Consider training both mentors and mentees together in pairs, as it helps to

build organizational capacity. Combined training provides mentees an opportunity to learn more

about their responsibilities and to understand the skills and behaviors of great mentors so that

they, too, can one day become great mentors.

Mentors and mentees should be trained in a formal, classroom-style setting under the guidance of

a professional trainer who has expertise in mentoring. During training, mentees and mentors

should complete the following:

Step 5: Evaluate Program Effectiveness

Did the processimprove the

mentee’s role in the organization?

Did the program enhance the mentee’s

perception of the company?

How can theprogram beimproved?

What milestoneswere reached?

What competencies

were acquired?

By analyzing these different metrics, the success

of the program can be adequately assessed. For

example, if a key organizational objective is to

improve time-to-proficiency for new hires, it

should be identified in the preparation phase

and specified through a SMART goal. At the end

of a mentoring relationship involving a new hire,

the time-to-proficiency should be measured and

compared to the time-to-proficiency for new

hires who did not join the mentoring program.

Important questions to cover in your evaluation include:

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Upon completion of the program (typically 12 months), there will be a number of people within the

organization who have a vested interest in the mentoring program’s effectiveness:

Senior leaders will want to know how the program met organizational objectives.

The governing committee will be interested to hear if participants met their personal objectives.

HR and talent management will need to learn how the program structure worked and what might need to be tweaked in order to be more effective.

Use a mix of both qualitative measures, such as surveys and interviews, and quantitative

measures, which include metrics for measuring the number of mentor/mentee applications

received, applicants who began a mentorship program, successful matches, mentees retained in

the organization and mentees who advanced in their positions.

Mentoring Matters

This resource guide is brought to you by MBA@UNC

and is based on expertise from UNC Kenan-Flagler.

As one of the most respected business schools in

the country, UNC Kenan-Flagler is known for its

comprehensive leadership development programs.

MBA@UNC continues the school’s tradition of

excellence through an innovative online MBA

program that features the same rigorous

curriculum and prestigious faculty as the

on-campus MBA program.

Poets & Quants ranks UNC Kenan-Flagler No. 4 in the nation for best MBA teaching faculty.

Bloomberg Businessweek ranks the school No. 7 for leadership development.

In order to succeed, mentoring programs require planning, structure, organizational buy-in and follow-through. Done right, a mentoring program can be a

valuable and strategic tool that can benefit

the needs and objectives of any organization.

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Develop Your Leadership SkillsThrough MBA@UNC

If you are ready to accelerate your career, MBA@UNC

offers the ideal platform to pursue your goals and

achieve outstanding results. Through a unique,

action-oriented leadership development program,

MBA@UNC empowers talented professionals to

become exceptional leaders.

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